Opto-electronic devices that make use of organic materials are becoming increasingly desirable for a number of reasons. Many of the materials used to make such devices are relatively inexpensive. Consequently, organic opto-electronic devices have the potential for cost advantages over inorganic devices. In addition, the inherent properties of organic materials, such as their flexibility, may make them well suited for particular applications such as fabrication on a flexible substrate. Examples of organic opto-electronic devices include organic light emitting devices (OLEDs), organic phototransistors, organic photovoltaic cells, and organic photodetectors. For OLEDs, the organic materials may have performance advantages over conventional materials. For example, the wavelength at which an organic emissive layer emits light may generally be readily tuned with appropriate dopants.
As used herein, the term “organic” includes polymeric materials as well as small molecule organic materials that may be used to fabricate organic opto-electronic devices. “Small molecule” refers to any organic material that is not a polymer, and “small molecules” may actually be quite large. Small molecules may include repeat units in some circumstances. For example, using a long chain alkyl group as a substituent does not remove a molecule from the “small molecule” class. Small molecules may also be incorporated into polymers, for example as a pendent group on a polymer backbone or as a part of the backbone. Small molecules may also serve as the core moiety of a dendrimer, which consists of a series of chemical shells built on the core moiety. The core moiety of a dendrimer may be an fluorescent or phosphorescent small molecule emitter. A dendrimer may be a “small molecule,” and it is believed that all dendrimers currently used in the field of OLEDs are small molecules.
OLEDs make use of thin organic films that emit light when voltage is applied across the device. OLEDs are becoming an increasingly interesting technology for use in applications such as flat panel displays, illumination, and backlighting. Several OLED materials and configurations are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,844,363, 6,303,238, and 5,707,745, which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
OLED devices are generally (but not always) intended to emit light through at least one of the electrodes, and one or more transparent electrodes may be useful in an organic opto-electronic device. For example, a transparent electrode material, such as indium tin oxide (ITO), may be used as the bottom electrode. A transparent top electrode, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,703,436 and 5,707,745, which are incorporated by reference in their entireties, may also be used. For a device intended to emit light only through the bottom electrode, the top electrode does not need to be transparent, and may be comprised of a thick and reflective metal layer having a high electrical conductivity. Similarly, for a device intended to emit light only through the top electrode, the bottom electrode may be opaque and/or reflective. Where an electrode does not need to be transparent, using a thicker layer may provide better conductivity, and using a reflective electrode may increase the amount of light emitted through the other electrode, by reflecting light back towards the transparent electrode. Fully transparent devices may also be fabricated, where both electrodes are transparent. Side emitting OLEDs may also be fabricated, and one or both electrodes may be opaque or reflective in such devices.
As used herein, “top” means furthest away from the substrate, while “bottom” means closest to the substrate. For example, in a device having two electrodes, the bottom electrode is the electrode closest to the substrate, and is generally the first electrode fabricated. The bottom electrode has two surfaces, a bottom surface closest to the substrate, and a top surface further away from the substrate. Where a first layer is described as “disposed over” a second layer, the first layer is disposed further away from substrate. There may be other layers between the first and second layer, unless it is specified that the first layer is “in physical contact with” the second layer. For example, a cathode may be described as “disposed over” an anode, even though there are various organic layers in between.
The technology of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) is undergoing rapid development. OLEDs originally utilized the electroluminescence produced from electrically excited molecules that emitted light from their singlet states as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,292. Such radiative emission from a singlet excited state is referred to as fluorescence. More recent work has demonstrated that higher power efficiency OLEDs can be made using molecules that emit light from their triplet state, defined as phosphorescence. Such electrophosphorescence makes it possible for phosphorescent OLEDs to have substantially higher quantum efficiencies than are possible for OLEDs that only produce fluorescence. This is based on the understanding that the excitons created in an OLED are produced, according to simple statistical arguments as well as experimental measurements, approximately 75% as triplet excitons and 25% as singlet excitons. The triplet excitons more readily transfer their energy to triplet excited states that can produce phosphorescence whereas the singlet excitons typically transfer their energy to singlet excited states that can produce fluorescence.
Since the lowest emissive singlet excited state of an organic molecule is typically at a slightly higher energy than the lowest triplet excited state, the singlet excited state may relax, by an intersystem crossing process, to the emissive triplet excited state. This means that all the exciton excitation energy may be converted into triplet state excitation energy, which then becomes available as phosphorescent emission. Thus, electrophosphorescent OLEDs have a theoretical quantum efficiency of 100%, since all the excitation energy can become available as electrophosphorescence.
In contrast, only a small percentage (about 25%) of excitons in fluorescent devices are capable of producing the fluorescent luminescence that is obtained from a singlet excited state. The remaining excitons in a fluorescent device, which are produced in the lowest triplet excited state of an organic molecule, are typically not capable of being converted into the energetically unfavorable higher singlet excited states from which the fluorescence is produced. This energy, thus, becomes lost to radiationless decay processes that heat-up the device.
As a consequence, since the discovery that phosphorescent materials could be used-in an OLED, Baldo et al., “Highly Efficient Phosphorescent Emission from Organic Electroluminescent Devices”, Nature, vol. 395, 151-154, 1998, there is now much interest in finding more efficient electrophosphorescent materials. OLEDs utilizing phosphorescent materials are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,303,238 which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Typically, phosphorescent emission from organic molecules is less common than fluorescent emission. However, phosphorescence can be observed from organic molecules under an appropriate set of conditions. It would be desirable if more efficient electrophosphorescent materials could be found, particularly materials that produce their emission in the technologically useful blue and green colors of the visible spectrum.